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mean, swear in blood?’
    ‘You have to. We have to cut our arms with our skate blades and mix the blood together and then you have to swear.’
    ‘All right.’
    All his life, Gustav would recall that it’s difficult to make a cut in your arm with an ice skate. The blades look sharp, but they’re not sharp enough for easy cutting. ‘We made a hash of it,’ he would tell people. ‘We couldn’t get the blood to come. But then it did because we made the cuts too deep and we were both in pain, but we had to cover this up.’
    Then, one day after school, Gustav was summoned to see the headmaster. Laid out on the headmaster’s desk were some of Gustav’s work books. There, for anyone to see, was how poor Gustav’s writing still was. Even his attempts at drawing and map-making were weak.
    ‘Well?’ said the headmaster. ‘What are we to make of these?’
    ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Gustav.
    ‘No. Precisely. And nor does your mother. She’s in despair. Aren’t you, Frau Perle?’
    Gustav turned and saw Emilie, sitting very still in a green chair. He hadn’t noticed her when he came in. He didn’t know how she’d got into the headmaster’s study so silently. He thought she looked like someone in a painting.
    Emilie said, ‘The thing is, Headmaster, I really want Gustav to succeed in his life. I want him to do something his father would have been proud of, and if his education amounts to nothing –’
    ‘No, no,’ said the headmaster, ‘his education will not amount to nothing. Gustav is not yet eight. We have time. But what I am going to suggest is some extra coaching, so that he can catch up in certain subjects. His maths are satisfactory, quite good, even, but the rest is poor. I have a young teacher in the school, Herr Hodler, who would be willing to come and tutor him, for a small consideration, on Sunday afternoons.’
    ‘No!’ Gustav burst out. ‘Not Sunday afternoons! I go skating then.’
    ‘Be quiet, Gustav,’ said Emilie.
    ‘The only time Herr Hodler has available is Sunday afternoons,’ said the headmaster. ‘It’s up to you, but personally I feel this would be of great benefit. Otherwise, we may have to keep Gustav down a class, to repeat the year’s work.’
    Gustav turned imploringly to his mother, but she was looking past him at the headmaster.
    ‘What will the tuition cost?’ she asked.
    ‘Not more than a few francs an hour. I don’t know what entry fees you pay at the ice rink, but I’ve heard they’re expensive. It may come to little more than that.’
    Gustav wanted to tell the headmaster that it was Adriana Zwiebel who paid for the rink, and for the skate hire and the hot chocolate and pretzels, but Emilie had her finger pressed to her lips, warning him to say nothing.
    They walked home in silence.
    By the time they got to Unter der Egg, it was raining. Gustav went straight to his room, hoping to be left alone, but Emilie followed him there. She sat on the bed and he stood at the window, holding on to his tin train. He was praying she wouldn’t speak. Because he knew that if Emilie told him he was going to have to give up his skating with Anton and Adriana, he was probably going to cry.

Coconut
Matzlingen,
1949
–
50
    THAT WAS IT, then: no more skating. No more ‘laughing boys’.
    Gustav hit the walls of his room. He smashed his train. He screamed at Emilie. She cuffed his head to silence him. She picked up the broken train and threw it into the rubbish bin.
    Herr Hodler was a thin, pale young man, with eyes that were pink-rimmed, like the eyes of a white rabbit. At the apartment on Unter der Egg, these rabbit eyes looked about, in vain, for a table on which the required work might be done.
    ‘There is no table,’ said Emilie Perle.
    She showed Herr Hodler the hinged kitchen shelf. He stared at it. He wasn’t being paid well for this tuition and the sight of this inadequate space made him sigh with frustration. He told Emilie he would do his best, but that he